On the news of his death in Jerusalem on February 10, we reprise excerpts from our 1999 interview with this eminent Jewish philosopher, leader of liberal Orthodoxy, and founder of the Shalom Hartman Institute.

At the center of Judaism, writes Yale University scholar and critic David Gelernter, is “a thread of ecstasy…the whole world, space and time and suffering and all, pulled together by triumphant jubilation.” More →

We have a story today about two young men who grew up together best friends — one white, one black — and then took different religious paths. One became an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, the other a Muslim. Today they argue, of course, but as Betty Rollin reports, they’ve found their theological differences don’t matter nearly as much as friendship and laughter. More →

The question of whether to ordain gay clergy has challenged and divided many denominations, including Conservative Jews. The Orthodox strongly oppose gay ordination, but reform Jews accept it. Now, the Conservative movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards has recommended that Conservative seminaries should be allowed to admit gays.

We have a story about a gay Orthodox Jew struggling with that seemingly impossible choice between sexual orientation and religion. It’s one of several such stories in a documentary feature film released three years ago and directed by Sandi Simcha Dubowski. The title of the film is TREMBLING BEFORE G-D. More →